Scabby-heided
A term to make your skin crawl! The Dictionaries of the Scots Language defines scabby-heided as
“infested with head lice”.
[Illustration by Bob Dewar]
Matthew Fitt’s 1996 poetry collection Pure Radge contains a particularly memorable early example:
“scabbie-heidit, muckle-boukit [of large build], aye hingin, hootchin wi clart”.
In November 2000, the Daily Record demonstrated how the phrase could be used to describe indiscriminate hunger:
“Hungry? I could eat a scabby-heided wean with toenail clippings on the side”.
To each his own.
These examples beg the question, is there only late twentieth century evidence for the term? Apparently not! The Port Glasgow Express of November 1895 has the following exchange from a trial over a row between sisters:
“Stanton was the first witness, and he said he heard Mrs Sweenie calling her sister a scabbie headed —.”
Unfortunately, the exact nature of this insult will be forever unknown, thanks to the editor’s cautious redaction.
Back to the twenty-first century, in August 2013 a writer in the Daily Record reflected on their childhood television habits:
“In my lifetime, my relationship with the telly has changed drastically. Going from being wee and feeling utterly deprived of one, to now eking out time to catch up with only what I’ve already (I still say this) ‘taped’! For years, the only person in our street with a telly was Mrs Lyons, the hairdresser. Saturdays saw her house invaded by scabby-headed weans who were not only there to watch Doctor Who but also to get the Vosene and clipper treatment”.
Ah, nostalgia.
This Scots Word of the Week comes from Dictionaries of the Scots Language.
Visit DSL Online at https://dsl.ac.uk.
Torn-face
This handy term is defined in the Dictionaries of the Scots Language (DSL) as
“(a person with) a sulky peevish face. Hence torn-faced, sulky, glum”.
A surprisingly recent coinage, the first citation is from a correspondent in Angus in 1968:
“What a torn face ye’ve got”.
[Illustration by Bob Dewar]
DSL has many examples from the 1990s. The following from For Ever Yours Marie-Lou by Martin Bowmen and Bill Findlay (1994) is intriguing:
“We’re too auld tae start this cairry-oan again…You take it fae me, torn face, you’ll be eatin smoothy peanut butter fae noo oan! If you’re waantin tae feed that wean’s face, you better start saving the cents!”.
In 1998, Gordon Legge wrote in Near Neighbours:
“As she headed back to her desk a great big woman with a right torn face came storming in”.
However, the term is still very much with us. A writer in the Daily Record back in January 2005 remarked:
“Say to a taxi driver: ‘No I can’t guess who you had in the back of your cab last week, and what’s more, I don't care.’ Guaranteed tight lip and torn face for your entire journey”.
A similarly evocative description appeared in the National in June 2022:
“There’s something typically Scottish about this man. Maybe it’s his sense of unbridled resentment at the hand the world has dealt him, maybe it’s the way he has the same torn face for everyone he speaks to, maybe it’s because he has not so a chip as an entire fish supper on his shoulder”.
This Scots Word of the Week comes from Dictionaries of the Scots Language.
Visit DSL Online at https://dsl.ac.uk.
Gigot
As chefs and foodies are no doubt aware, gigot makes a delicious dinner choice. Defined in the Dictionaries of the Scots Language (DSL) as
“A leg of mutton; also used of pork and beef”,
this word entered the language from French, though its ultimate origin is unknown.
[Illustration by Bob Dewar]
The term has a long history within Scots. DSL records an early use from 1791 in Mrs Frazer’s The Practice of Cookery:
“To broil a leg of Lamb: Cut off the loin and boil the gigot”.
Curious readers may even wish to try this recommendation from F Marian Macneill’s 1946 Recipes from Scotland:
“A Gigot of Mutton… Trim the gigot and rub all over with the sugar”.
In 2005 a correspondent from Edinburgh told DSL that the word was still being used by the meat industry:
“Gigot is used for pork as well as lamb and also for beef in wholesale usage”.
However, it doesn’t only appear behind the scenes. Take a look at this example from February 2022 when the Largs and Millport Weekly reported on the local ‘Ladies who Lunch’ group’s first post-pandemic meal. The menu for their Robert Burns tour at Ayrshire’s Seamill Hydro Hotel ran as follows:
“... the delicious lunch menu will be; roast gigot of lamb, with a leek & nutmeg pomme puree, braised carrots & a rich thyme-scented red wine jus followed by a meringue nest filled with vanilla cream, mixed berries & chocolate shavings”.
A wee bit fancier than our Bard would have been used to!
This Scots Word of the Week comes from Dictionaries of the Scots Language.
Visit DSL Online at https://dsl.ac.uk.
Keelie
The entry for keelie was written in 1960, which probably explains its rather prim definition in the Dictionaries of the Scots Language (DSL):
“A male city-dweller of the rougher sort, specifically of Glasgow and district, occasionally of Edinburgh, an uncouth rowdy fellow, a ‘tough’. Originally it implied thievish or criminal propensities”.
[Illustration by Bob Dewar]
The term’s origins in nineteenth-century Edinburgh can be seen in the following from the Scots Magazine of April 1812:
“He knew of a number of lads who used to meet at the bottom of Niddry Street when they came from their work … He has heard them called Keellies”.
This example doesn’t seem to show any sign of criminality. This aspect is covered in the North British Daily Mail of August 1863:
“The defender… said that I was a Saltmarket Keelie, a fighting man, a thief”.
In the twentieth century, J B Symons, writing under the pseudonym of Restalrig (a district in Edinburgh), in his At the Sign of the Sheep’s Heid (1922) gives us:
“Jist yin o’ thae Leith Coalhill keelies oot for a nicht’s batterin”.
The twenty-first century supplies us with much evidence that the term is still used even in douce Edinburgh. This example comes from a description of a lunch in the Edinburgh Evening News of December 2013:
“Tom was in steak pie mode, like me. It’s in our genes. Leith keelies do adore steak pie. We do love our scran”.
Perhaps the writer could have been better described as a former keelie.
Scots Word of the Week comes from Dictionaries of the Scots Language.
Visit DSL Online at https://dsl.ac.uk.